Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Latest parliamentary election opinion poll: Law and Justice 34%…Civic Platform 32%...Self Defence 11%…League of Polish families 7%…Social Democratic Left 8%…Peasants Party 3%A move in favour of Law and Justice in the most recent opinion poll suggests that who will get the top jobs in the right wing coalition after the general election on Sunday is not as clear cut as many thunk.

After weeks of being out front in the polls, Civic Platform has been overtaken by the conservative, Law and Justice party.

The largest party in parliament will probably be the one which gets to pick the Prime Minister. If Law and Justice stay in the lead then this means that Jaroslaw Kaczynski could well be Poland's next PM.

Earlier this month, when it looked like Civic Platform were certain to be the biggest force in parliament, law and Justice's Lech Kaczynski demanded that a fair share out of the jobs was a precondition to any coalition negotiation. “"If [Civic Platform] will have its prime minister and finance minister, we want to have our foreign affairs minister."

Donald Tusk, leader of the Civic Platform retorted that he would not be entering into any such negotiations via the media, and this is a matter best left till after the last vote is counted after the poll.

But the new poll finding - if reliable - has thrown all this into doubt. The OBOP poll may be a rogue, however, and goes against all recent polls that put Civic Platform in the lead by 2 to 5 percent.